en. The
Baron Rastka and Count Vorversk were of the dignity and courteous
reserve which marks men of distinction. Marco was not a mere boy to
them, he was the son of Stefan Loristan; and they were Samavians. They
watched over him, not as Lazarus did, but with a gravity and
forethought which somehow seemed to encircle him with a rampart.
Without any air of subservience, they constituted themselves his
attendants. His comfort, his pleasure, even his entertainment, were
their private care. The Rat felt sure they intended that, if possible,
he should enjoy his journey, and that he should not be fatigued by it.
They conversed with him as The Rat had not known that men ever
conversed with boys,--until he had met Loristan. It was plain that
they knew what he would be most interested in, and that they were aware
he was as familiar with the history of Samavia as they were themselves.
When he showed a disposition to hear of events which had occurred, they
were as prompt to follow his lead as they would have been to follow the
lead of a man. That, The Rat argued with himself, was because Marco had
lived so intimately with his father that his life had been more like a
man's than a boy's and had trained him in mature thinking. He was very
quiet during the journey, and The Rat knew he was thinking all the time.

The night before they reached Melzarr, they slept at a town some hours
distant from the capital. They arrived at midnight and went to a quiet
hotel.

"To-morrow," said Marco, when The Rat had left him for the night,
"to-morrow, we shall see him! God be thanked!"

"God be thanked!" said The Rat, also. And each saluted the other
before they parted.

In the morning, Lazarus came into the bedroom with an air so solemn
that it seemed as if the garments he carried in his hands were part of
some religious ceremony.

"I am at your command, sir," he said. "And I bring you your uniform."

He carried, in fact, a richly decorated Samavian uniform, and the first
thing Marco had seen when he entered was that Lazarus himself was in
uniform also. His was the uniform of an officer of the King's Body
Guard.

"The Master," he said, "asks that you wear this on your entrance to
Melzarr. I have a uniform, also, for your aide-de-camp."

When Rastka and Vorversk appeared, they were in uniforms also. It was a
uniform which had a touch of the Orient in its picturesque splendor. A
short fur-bordered mantle hung by a jeweled chain